We are well informed, at present, that all the brilliant pyrotechny of Neptune is the effect of animal secretion, not differing essentially in cause from that which ornaments our groves and meadows, when the glow-worms of Europe, the fire-flies of North America, or the fulgoure of the Indies are lighting their fairy love-lanterns beneath the cool, green leaves, or filling the air with their mimic meteors.
To those who are not familiar with microscopic researches, it may seem almost impossible that animal life can be multiplied to such excess in the transparent waters, where not a mote is visible by daylight, as to give rise to the broad and bright illumination of the sea, so frequently observed within the lower latitudes; and many, for this reason, have attributed these night-fires of the deep to the impurity and occasional fermentation of the ocean,—a cause which they esteem more nearly commensurate with the magnificence of the result. Such theorists regard this phosphorescence as similar to that so constantly produced by putrifying fish and decaying wood.
These ideas, as I have stated, are no longer tenable, and the real origin of the phenomenon is better understood. But even now, the few who have witnessed it in full extent, variety, and grandeur—a privilege rarely enjoyed, except by those who have made long voyages, and have become familiar with many seas—are lost in wonder; and, unless professionally devoted to the study of natural history, they find it difficult to credit the assertion, that all these vast displays are mere results of living action.
It may prove interesting, then, to those who are fond of such investigations, to offer some remarks on the multitudinous character of those tribes of simple and transparent beings, which swarm about the surface of the ocean, and may be found continually changing in race and habits, with almost every degree of latitude we traverse.
If you will take the trouble, on some suitable occasion during the month of November or December, to descend into a fashionable oyster cellar, and ask admission to the pile of freshly opened shells stowed in the usual receptacle, which is in some dark vault or closet about the premises, you may chance to witness, on a diminutive scale, the far-famed phosphorescence of the sea, without enduring the heavy immigration tax levied, with unrelenting severity, by the old trident-bearer upon all novices, except, perhaps, a few fortunate favorites.
Take up the shovel that leans against the wall, order the light removed and the door closed, and then proceed to disturb the shells. If they have been taken from the water, where it is purely salt,—and still more certainly if gathered from the beds of blue marine mud that are the favorite resort of the finest oysters—the moment you throw a shovelful upon the top of the pile, the whole mass, jarred by the blow, will become spangled with hundreds of brilliant stars—not in this case pale and silvery, but of the richest golden-green or blue. None of these stars may equal in size the head of the finest pin; but so intense is the light emitted by them, that a single, and scarcely visible point will sometimes illuminate an inch of the surrounding surface, even casting shadows from the little spears of sea-grass growing in its neighborhood.
Choose one of the most conspicuous of these diminutive tapers, and, without removing it from the shell, carry it towards the gas-lamp. As you approach, the brilliancy of the star declines; and when the full flood of light is thrown upon the shell, it nearly, or entirely disappears. If you press your finger rudely upon the spot, you will again perceive the luminous matter diffused, like a fluid, over the surrounding surface, and shining, for an instant, more brightly than ever, even under the immediate glare of the gas. Then all is over. You have crushed one of the glow-worms of the deep—an animal, once probably as vain of his golden flame as you of any of your brilliant endowments—perhaps some sentinel there stationed to alarm his sleeping brethren of the approach of danger—perhaps an animalcular Hero trimming her solitary lamp to guide her chosen one, through more than Leander’s dangers, along the briny path to her rocky bower, beset by all the microscopic monsters of the corallines! At all events, despise it as you may, this little being was possessed of life, susceptible of happiness, and endowed with power to outshine, with inborn lustre, the richest gem in Europe’s proudest diadem!
The sea is filled in many regions, and at various seasons, with incalculable multitudes of living creatures, in structure much resembling this little parasite, but often vastly more imposing in dimensions. The smallest tribes that are able to call attention to their individual existence generally wander, like erratic stars, beneath the waves. They may be seen by thousands shooting past the vessel, on evenings when the moon is absent or obscured, suddenly lighting their torches when the motion of the bow produces a few curling swells and breakers on either hand, and whirling from eddy to eddy, as they sweep along the side and are lost in the wake. From time to time the vessel, in her progress, disturbs some large being of similar powers, who instantly ejects a trail of luminous fluid which, twining, and waving about among contending currents, assumes the semblance of a silver snake. But the most surprising of all proofs of the infinity of life is furnished by those inconceivably numerous bands of shining animalcules, too small for human vision, which in their aggregate effect perform, perhaps, the grandest part in beautifying the night scene on the ocean.
The crest of every wave emits a pale and milky light and every ripple that, urged onward too rapidly before the breeze, expires in spreading its little patch of foam upon the water, increases the mysterious brightness. On a starless evening the novice may find it very difficult to account for the distinctness with which even the distant billows may be traced by their whitened summits, while every other object is thrown into the deepest shade. The gentle radiation from within the foam deceives the eye:—it seems a mere reflection from the surface; and he turns again and again towards the heavens, with the constantly renewed impression, that the moon has found some transient opening in the cloudy canopy through which descends a thin pencil of rays to be glinted back from the edges of the waves.
Though certain portions of the ocean, generally, present but slender proofs of phosphorescence,—such being peculiarly the case within the gloomy limits of the Gulf Stream, for reasons not to be appropriately mentioned here—yet no observing person can have passed a week upon the ocean, or rowed his skiff by night on any of our principal harbors, without becoming familiar with most of the appearances to which allusion has been made. A mere voyage to Europe frequently presents much grander examples; but he who would enjoy the view of the phenomenon in its fullest glory, must “cross earth’s central line” “and brave the stormy spirit of the Cape.”